Hey guys so this is an awesome commercial that I have watched a few time partly because it is so well done and partly because it really made me think about how I sometimes jump to conclusions.
Really well done commercial
I keep watching this commercial over and over again because it is so well done and it sends what I think to be a positive message. I am slightly ashamed to admit that if I saw the guy on the street without the makeup on I probably would be a little freaked out. However I did some back research into his life and it seems he is a really nice and intelligent guy who uses his body to send a powerful positive message.
Animation
The following animation represents an idea for a possible interaction utilizing the touch table like that one we observed at the Silk Road exhibition.
It shows the Maya Long Count and it will allow people to learn about the bak-tuns, the calendar round, and some important dates in history in order to make a connection with the Gregorian calendar.
The animation will run through and show what would happen when people ‘touch’ the calendar and move it around. We thought it would be a good idea to allow visitors to ‘tap’ a certain baktun (when the slice turn to yellow) and pull it out to their ‘station’ in order to learn more about the dates and the calendar.
There is a zoom in to show what each person would be looking at in their station when they focus on one particular slice of the calendar. We believe it would be much easier to allow individuals to focus on a specific smaller period of time rather than try to grasp the full calendar at once.
After they have learned something specific about that baktun, they can just send it back to the main calendar and later on turn it to learn about the other slices that can be pulled apart.
Additionally, as a background, we have floating day glyphs that people can touch in order to just learn their name and what they are. This adds and extra level of interaction.
—> Is this enough? Let me know!
Speech for Sarah’s piece
This final installation piece although the most abstract of the three it is also a form of gorilla marketing meant to attract penn students through the museum. Like the other two installation pieces it is the air of mystery combined with a reference to the museum that would catch the students attention and hopefully draw them in. This also could be place in the time square part of the exhibit to help visitors dis-associate themselves from the everyday way that they view and think about time.
It is a functioning Gregorian time clock. To read the clock one must count the number of lit up squares. The squares on the thin side of the clock reference hours, the small moving red square represents seconds and the multitude of colored squares below represent minutes.
Each second the red square would move to a different random position on the clock at the same time the lit up squares representing hours would also move positions each second, though this movement would be purely for aesthetic purposes.
Each minute a new “minute square” would lit up. There are sixty minute and second squares and twelve hour squares.
When all sixty minute squares are filled some light event will happen to signify the changing of hours.
Currently there are only about three seconds show per minute and it changes fast than one second. Also part way through the number of minutes shown jumps for times sake. [Lastly the lit up hour squares follow a pattern for part of the time and are random part of the time as well to give you a visual of what a pattern sequence versus a random sequence for the hours would look like.]
The shape and use of squares within the clock reference the Maya stella coupled with the concept of time.
Stacy – you don’t need to mention the last bit about the hours if you feel it is not necessary.
Praxis Work
These pieces were designed as part of a celebration to mark the 10th anniversary of PennPraxis in the fall of 2011.
The book was created as a proposal for a luxury item to be produced in a small edition and given as a thank you gift to collaborators and others who have contributed to the success of Praxis over the past decade. It contains images related to Praxis’ civic work in the Philadelphia community as well as brief testimonials – or voices – from 10 individuals closely associated with the organization, including community activists, government officials, the director of Praxis, the Dean of the School of Design at Penn, and faculty and students who have worked on projects with Praxis.
As part of their tenth anniversary, we also proposed that Praxis inaugurate an annual design competition called “Envisioning Philadelphia.” Pictured above is a poster announcing this competition and inviting artists and designers to participate.
The website was created as a way of both celebrating the 10th anniversary of Praxis, as well as a way of revitalizing the web presence of Praxis. After the celebrations are over and the 10th anniversary has passed, Praxis could choose to remove the 10th anniversary aspect of the website, but still use the basic structure to keep their web presence strong.
A PDF of our preliminary proposal can be found here: Praxis_Proposal
Working Maya Project Site
Make sure Quintin has/knows what you’re adding to site for Friday – 10a
The Impact of a Branded World
The world around us is a branded one. It is inescapable; everywhere we look we are being blasted by some form of
commercial messaging, from the thousands of ads we subconsciously encounter to the thousands upon thousands of logos that brand nearly every item we come in contact with. There are statistics that say the average person is exposed from anywhere between 3000-5000 forms of advertisements a day, and though it’s quite possibly impossible to validate this claim, it is clear that the amount of advertising and branding we see is mind numbing. We come into contact with them so frequently that we don’t even realize it anymore. It has become an accepted part of our lives, and our eyes glaze over them like they weren’t there.
However, we must be conscious of the impact this branded world has on us. We are battered by countless images and words, all pressing us to consume, to buy, to adhere and conform to societal standards and own what everyone else owns. One must stop and wonder if we are really thinking on our own when we want something or if on some subliminal level we are just thinking what we have been programmed to, a product of a thousand commercial messages impressing on us.
Imagine a world without these commercial messages. It’s essentially unimaginable on a tangible level, as it is so far 
ingrained into our minds. Nothing would be left unaltered, not only in appearances but deeper than that, in ourselves. It is hard to contemplate this, because we can’t possibly know how our minds would work in this untarnished world, but it would most certainly have an impact.
Now imagine the impact of this purified world on us as designers. Would we have significance? Are we but a function of the branded world?
-Q
Graphic Design Practicum: Spring 2011 